Rise Up
You’ve seen my descent. Now watch my rising -Rumi
No road is more difficult to navigate than the one that involved rising up from rock-bottom. It involves a lot of pain, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually. No matter how you find yourself at the bottom of that cold pit, the emotions are always the same— grief, discomfort, discouragement, frustration, anger, guilt, shame, despair, hopelessness, etc. The struggle is real, I understand.
That struggle and emotions that arise may be different from rock bottom’s perspective. Sometimes it takes a while to finally tell yourself, “It’s time.” You stay at the bottom and you feel the comfort of just staying there. In the midst of that cold pit, you find yourself just taking a few breaths of respite from the world where you fell from. No “must”s. No “should”s. No pressure. No people, nor society, nor social media to dictate on you and show your worth or lack thereof. I know I’ve been there. The comfort of that rock bottom can be enticing, and liberating, although I know, I eventually must get up.
The struggles and emotions of falling down are much the same as getting up. You slowly try to find your way up. A bit of light to find the way. Slowly feel for rocks and shelves to use as footholds and handholds as you make yourself up. Sometimes you slide and yet you persevere. You always did. You always do. You always will.
As you finally reach up, the light can be blinding at first and you close your eyes, yet again feeling the pain and the struggle. And yet your resolve to rise up persists.
You take another deep breath and slowly you stand in the midst of it all and dust yourself off.
You are ready to begin. You are pretty sure of that. You tell yourself that.
And so you show up into the world with your head held high and say: You’ve seen my descent. Now watch my rising.
Image by A SrockStudio via Shutterstock
